the white house seems to have the leverage right now, craig, and whether it was president obama's re-election, whether it's some of the republicans like the sound you actually played from tom cole who seems to be going to the white house position, the bush tax cuts should be extended for the middle class, but for the middle class only. so the white house by creating all these big demands including more tax revenue, but also saying, hey, congress, we want to take away your power on the debt ceiling limit to have all these asks that tim geithner apparently made was basically to make republicans cave on the one thing the white house really wants, and that is to decouple the bush tax cuts for the middle class and the wealthy. >> do you think the white house has done a good job explaining that every american will get a tax cut on their first $250,000 of income? >> that's a great question and president obama made that in his remarks today. he's actually been making it in the past. and it is actually something that we as journalists haven't done a very good job pointing out. that even if you are a b